Pluto

Gesicht, an android police detective of Europol, is tasked with finding the murderer of Montblanc, a retired war hero robot. Although it appears that only a robot could have committed this crime, the murder of a renowned robot rights activist casts doubts on the criminal's identity. Indeed, outside of an isolated and unexplained incident that occurred eight years ago, robots are programmed to be unable to kill human beings. However, the lack of human evidence on the crime scene and the similarity of modus operandi lead Gesicht to suspect that the two murderers might be the same being—be they man or robot.

Shortly after Montblanc's passing, another retired elite war robot is mysteriously eliminated. Gesicht notices a pattern in the choice of murder victim: both dead robots belonged to a group of the seven most powerful war machines ever designed. Determined to stop the murderer from eliminating the five remaining veterans, Gesicht seeks help from Atom, a cutting-edge android who resembles a human boy. The duo must now hunt down the rogue killer before the series of murders is carried on, lest the very fabric of society suffer irremediable damage.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gesicht Main

Fuji, Shinshuu Japanese

Atom Main

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Epsilon Supporting

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

North #2 Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Brau-1589 Supporting

Tanaka, Hideyuki Japanese

Tenma, Umatarou Supporting

Tsuda, Eizou Japanese

Pluto Supporting

Seki, Toshihiko Japanese

Dr. Ochanomizu Supporting

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Ali, Muhammad Supporting

Minami, Wakana Japanese

Uran Supporting

Suzuki, Minori Japanese

Nagasaki, Takashi Producer

Noda, Fuko Producer

Maruyama, Shintarou Producer

Ikou, Yuushi Producer

Reviews

May 22, 2024

NillyPC

Recommended

Naoki Urasawa is a master at storytelling. The way the pages fly off the manga and are animated so well. It's just beautiful. I've indulged in three manga/anime by him (20th Century Boys, Monster, and ofc Pluto now) and I can see how good he is at crafting wild and insane narratives with interesting philosophical views on the worlds these stories take place.

The soundtrack of this hits well. Some tracks I've added to my gym playlist. Its not a action show for the most part as it is focused on the answer to the mystery at hand. Animation is really pretty. Studio M2 really came ... with their cooking gear and blessed this show with some beautiful animation. Story is great as well. Some flaws, but it takes a lot of elements from real-world wars as inspiration for an aspect in the story.

Overall epic show. I like it a lot and I hope that it gets a lot of praise in the following years.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 24, 2024

Morragan

Mixed Feelings

I'm very surprised by the high praises this show got. I was expecting to watch a somewhat hidden gem, but quickly ended up disillusioned. In short: if you're looking for good dialogue, good pacing, good characters, good setting and a well-written story, this show is not for you.

The show has just barely enough qualities to keep you watching. The main character is fairly interesting and the show gives him a somewhat personal motivation to solve the case, again, just barely good enough to engage the viewer too. The overall story is coherent and feeds you bits and pieces of information at a steady pace, as ... any detective drama would. The character writing is okay-ish and the overall theme of the story stays pretty consistent and (very) discernible.

Unfortunately, that's where the positive qualities end and the outdated elements of the narrative become very apparent.

The dialogue is funny. Not intentionally and not through jokes, but through how bad it sometimes is. Characters will have a normal conversation until out of nowhere, one will start a 5-minute long sob-story about their past that will conveniently just so happen to contain clues for the big mystery. Some characters will blurt out thoughts in situations where it makes no sense for them to do so.
The dialogue often breaks the immersion and makes it plainly obvious that the characters are just the author's tools to give exposition.

The pacing feels boring. It's often due to an onslaught of flashbacks (one specific scene is almost as bad as Naruto's swing) and characters repeating themselves, then other characters repeating what they heard, but the most draining cause of this boredom is due to the next point.

The characters are one-dimensional. Well, most of them. Aside from very select few, most characters have one defining personality trait that they show you soon after introduction and then that's it. No nuance or nothing, you know exactly who they are. None of their actions will surprise you. None of their lines will invest you. You know all that there is to know about them and every scene that features them feels pointless.
It feels sad to say that, because this shallowness is juxtaposed with truly compelling and well-written characters. Each scene that features both types is a reminder of missed potential. It's evident that the author was more than capable of creating depth and complexity so seeing the majority of the cast remain this stagnant and uninteresting throughout the 8 hours of the runtime gives you a mix of boredom and frustration.

The setting is an example of missed opportunity too. Pluto is a feast to the eyes for fans of 20-year-old futurism. The environments and visuals are consistently great, despite some CG horrors and stilted movements here and there. Unfortunately, the author took a lot of liberty in utilizing the setting in the story and demands A LOT of suspension of disbelief from the viewers. There are tons of sci-fi terms with intentionally vague meanings. The robots can communicate with each other over great distances when it's convenient for them to do so only to forget that capability in favor of plot convenience. Their consciousness resides in specific parts of their bodies, but they don't have any backups and get killed by a wound to the stomach. Everyone can travel at incredible speeds across the globe, until they're conveniently too slow. Characters magically know stuff, either because "they can tell" or because "they picked up stray brain waves". Oh and don't forget about "The 39th Central Asian Conflict", otherwise the show will repeat it to you every 15 minutes.

The story is pretty okay. I mean, it's mostly anchored on motivations of decently believable characters and unravels itself pretty neatly. Unfortunately, contrary to any other detective dramas, not a single plot point really hits you.
When the show gives you a poignant revelation in a well-crafted scene, it does so way after you were given enough clues to figure it out yourself.
When the story shares some shocking secret, it does so at the end of a 10-minute force-fed exposition dump.
When the characters experience any kind of shocking realization, they immediately start making decisions that are either laughably bad or frustratingly nonsensical.
When the show tries to point at its underlying theme, it does it so plainly it might as well have a character write it out on the screen.

Overall, Pluto isn't bad. It's very lacking in many regards, but has enough good qualities in the right places to please fans of the genre. Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 8, 2024

xakpc

Not Recommended

Funny

It's bad, really bad. The world was intriguing at first, society where robots blended in but not fully, and that creates some conflict

But they thrash it completely: robots can't lie, but actually they can, robots can't kill, but actually they can, robots don't have emotions, but actually they have.

Robots here basically humans, sometimes with abilities, like x-mens. or tosters. And I expected to be sad because kid toster is "destroyed", but there was zero attempt to build any interest to said toster, so I don't care.

Episodes are long and all over the place, they could change the pacing in the middle of episode and ... move it to completely unrelated direction. And honestly, they simply boring most of the time, IMO only detective story is interesting somewhat.

Episodes mostly has no logic, characters can teleport whereever they needed by plot, make decisions that completely illogical, find out or forget their abilities.

The ending is boring, pointless exposition dump, and main villain just meh

Picture is nice though, the only positive thing here

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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